Water-cooled non-thermal gliding arc for adhesion improvement of glass-fibre-reinforced polyester

A non-equilibrium quenched plasma is prepared using a gliding-arc discharge generated between diverging electrodes and extended by a gas flow. It can be operated at atmospheric pressure and applied to plasma surface treatment to improve adhesion properties of material surfaces. In this work, glass-fibre-reinforced polyester plates were treated using an atmospheric pressure gliding-arc discharge with air flow to improve adhesion with a vinylester adhesive. The electrodes were water-cooled so as to operate the gliding arc continually. The treatment improved wettability and increased the density of oxygen-containing polar functional groups on the surfaces. Double cantilever beam specimens were prepared for fracture mechanic characterization of the laminate adhesive interface. It was found that gliding-arc treatment significantly increases the fracture resistance in comparison with a standard peel-ply treatment.